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Much needed update

Well, to start off… sorry for such a long delay between posts. My last post was right before my fall semester of school started up. It has been WAY to long. I have had a very busy and exciting semester!

As the semester is starting to wind down to the last 4 weeks or so, my final projects for many of my classes are beginning to take up more and more of my time. However, I get to head home for Thanksgiving break and see my family which is always nice.

A brief overview on what I have been up to these last couple of months. First and foremost, I have been trying to work on as much Character Animation as time allows while still making sure to get my actual school assignments done. I’m not in an actual animation class at the moment but I’m taking a Digital Lighting and Rendering course and have learned quite a bit about this topic. Next semester will be my first class in Motion for Computer Animation as well as my first time working with a group of students to create an animated short film!

Now for some exciting news! Thanks to the opportunities of going to a well-known school like Purdue University, I had the opportunity to meet and talk to Bob Peterson of Pixar! He is actually a Purdue Alumnus. It was great getting to sit down and talk to him with a few fellow animation students and my professors! He is an extremely interesting person and his visit was very inspiring!

I’ve also gotten the chance to meet and talk to representatives from DreamWorks Animation that came out to our school for a couple of days and gave a talk as well. One of the speakers is also a Purdue Alumnus from just a couple of years ago so it was nice getting to speak to a fellow Boilermaker who works in the industry that I hope to work in someday soon!

I’ve currently gotten a few animated shots done in my spare time that can been seen on my progress reel over at http://www.mattsackley.com Most of them are thanks to the helpful material over at Digital-Tutors. My absolute goal for the year is to get a respectable demo reel made to try my hand at applying for animation internships at any studio that will take me for the summer. My major goal is the Disney Associates program whose deadline is April 20th. It’s a long shot but I want to have a goal to work towards!

Well I’ve rambled enough… I hope to have some more interesting content up soon. I’m sorry for not posting for so long. It feels good to get back to blogging though, I really should not have taken such a long break!